[CQ-Contest] 6 November Light Show

[Bill Tippett]

        Last night we had one of the most spectacular auroras of this
solar cycle!  At approximately 0153, the X1 Coronal Mass Ejection of 
4 November hit the Earth's ionosphere and began an incredible aurora 
with sightings as far south as Florida, Texas and California.  I've
seen two previously from here in NC but missed 2 others on October 21
and 28.  This time I was prepared and...for the first time...I had my
camera ready:

http://users.vnet.net/btippett/6_nov_aurora.htm

I'll add others but wanted to share this one showing my 160 meter 
tower silhouetted by the light show!

        BTW, if you are interested in receiving alerts for pending
CME impacts (which cause auroras) this is probably the best way to
do it:

Send a plain-text e-mail to majordomo at skypub.com with the 
following line (and nothing else) in the body of the
message: 

subscribe sun-earth e-mail at address.com 

replacing "e-mail at address.com" with your actual e-mail address.  This 
message is sent only in the case of impending (~24 hour notice) CME 
impacts.  It is done by Cary Oler for Sky & Telescope Magazine and is 
usually quite accurate and does not give false alarms.  You will only
occasionally get an E-mail so it is NOT like "junk mail" lists that 
will bombard you with info you don't need.  In my opinion, this is the 
BEST way to be notified of impending events unless you have time to 
monitor webpages and chat rooms continuously. 

        I find it very useful to know of pending auroras and used this
effectively to plan my operating strategy for the recent CQ WW SSB 
which had one hit at around 0300 on 28 October.  I knew the light show
would follow but decided I needed the sleep to be fresh on Sunday so
I missed seeing that one!

                                                73,  Bill  W4ZV 


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